


Caught

by futurelounging



Series: FuLo's Other Outlander Tales [6]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Masturbation, Multi, Puberty, Sexuality, masturbating in the bushes, muscular thighs, sexual awakening, wet bosoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 02:35:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16317521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futurelounging/pseuds/futurelounging
Summary: John Grey prepares to leave on a journey to Fraser's Ridge with Willie, but finds him in an embarrassing situation. They later discuss it and John recalls his own sexual awakening.





	Caught

**Author's Note:**

> From a Tumblr prompt for Other Outlander Tales
> 
> canmyemotionspleasechill said:  
> Hi guys I was wondering if one of you could write something about Lord John realizing or coming to terms with his sexuality? Also I adore your work. I turned on notifications for your blog and every time I get one im super excited to see what you came up with.

John straightened the cuffs of his jacket, a nervous habit he’d formed in recent years, and one deemed acceptable within the bounds of the excessive grooming afforded to gentlemen of his class. Willie had disappeared, yet again, right before they were to leave on their journey and the servants’ efforts to find him were suspiciously unconcerned. He’d gotten better as he’d aged, less prone to relentless mischief, but his default still seemed to be defiance.

Having checked the usual places throughout the estate, John walked around the side of the house where the servants came and went through the kitchen. He stopped suddenly as he rounded the corner and tucked himself against the stone wall. Before him, crouched behind a winterberry bush, was his son, staring glassy-eyed with his hand down the front of his trousers.

The object of his admiration was a kitchen maid who was washing vegetables in a bucket and had managed to thoroughly soak the front of her dress, which now clung to her bosom. She continued scrubbing the root vegetables causing the aforementioned parts to shake and jiggle in a manner that even John found difficult to ignore.

He needed to find a way to interrupt Willie’s spying without embarrassing both his son and the kitchen maid. And himself, for that matter. There didn’t seem to be a way to make his presence known without red faces all around, so he decided on another tack.

Rounding back through the front of the house, John made his way past the cook in the kitchen who looked at him as though he were stomping on her flower bed. “Oh!” he stopped and smiled apologetically to the cook. “The, erm, the maid’s name?”

“Amelia, sir.”

“Right, Amelia. Pardon.” John burst through the back door, startling Amelia who dropped the turnip she was holding and bent over to retrieve it, which was certainly not the outcome he was hoping for. John positioned himself behind her to draw her attention away from the bushes where William had done a very poor job of concealing himself.

“Amelia, so sorry. I was wondering if perhaps you’ve seen my son anywhere lately. We are to depart now, and I do not wish to delay lest we lose daylight. We’ve a long journey ahead of us.”

Willie’s head popped up over the top of the bush and John briefly glared at him, attempting to gesture with his eyes for Willie to remove himself from this situation at once. Willie, thankfully, did so, though not without making an absurd ruckus which John was forced to conceal with a coughing fit.

He said nothing to Willie as they left the estate. A couple hours in, they stopped outside a town to water the horses and eat a bit. Willie dipped his hands in the cool stream to wash off the dust and John watched him, the sun shadowing half his face. The structure of him had changed, the baby fat giving way to widening cheekbones. He was changing right before his eyes, a perfect image of his parents.

Something had to be said, of that he was sure. But, despite thinking about it continuously on the ride, John had failed to come up with a good way to broach the subject. The last thing he wanted was for the servants to be nervously checking the bushes for spies whenever they left the house.

It then occurred to him that he was a grown man and William his son and perhaps he was overthinking it.

“Willie, about earlier, with Amelia.” He glanced at Willie who had suddenly turned to stone, a blush creeping up his skin. “It is, of course, entirely natural that you should appreciate the features of...of the fairer sex. But, you might perhaps wish to commit those images to your mind and enjoy them as recollections rather than live viewings, as it were. Just to avoid any complications.”

Willie remained still, though his posture relaxed slightly, perhaps in hope that this would be the extent of their talk. And then John spoke again.

“You know, I...I understand what you’re going through at this particular juncture in your journey to manhood.” John stopped and cringed at the words coming out of his mouth. _My god man, silence yourself!_ “It can be a bit surprising the things the body does as we...ponder certain aspects of those whose beauty we admire, and while it is natural to want to consider such beauty...often, do be considerate of where you are and perhaps keep such activity confined to your bedchambers.”

Willie was suddenly very interested in the movements of a frog attempting to clear the bank. John breathed a sigh of relief that he’d done his duty as father and could perhaps go some time again before another awkward conversation was merited.

Crouching in a muddy patch of mashed fallen leaves, William furrowed his brow, contemplating more than the frog’s next move. His voice was quiet, but openly curious. “When you were my age, did you like to admire ladies, too?”

John’s brow shot up and he quickly recovered a more neutral expression. “Oh, well…” The truth was not so simple. In fact, John did quite admire ladies, but perhaps more in the way one admires a well-manicured garden or the smooth lines of a horse’s back. The type of admiration William inquired about he’d felt most sincerely and forcefully at William’s age, the unexpected joy of it drowning in the murky waters of shame.

As a lad, his godfather took him weekly to attend lunch at The Society for the Appreciation of English Beefsteak, a club whose name took on entirely new meaning for him as he matured. It was at such a luncheon, when he was about Willie’s age, that he first acknowledged the feeling roused in him at certain aspects of the male form. He’d not cared much for most of the men at the club, older gentlemen with prominent jowls and even more prominent voices. However, he was witness to a strange scene one day that opened a door for him that would never again close, through which his true self required admittance.

Reginald Craig was not particularly jowly or particularly loud, but as a member of the younger set, had a certain boyish charm. He made jokes at the older men’s expense and winked at John conspiratorially, which John secretly loved.

One day, after a tad too much brandy, Reginald began boasting of a gruesome scar he had on his thigh, the result of a sword fight that may or may not have been about honor or an argument about grouse hunting techniques - no one was quite sure.

The scar, however, was so boasted about that more than a few members of the club implored Reginald to display it, right then and there. He seemed quite eager to do so and warned them that it was rather high on his leg and he could not guarantee one would see it without also catching a glimpse of his manhood, and there may have been hooting. John’s memory no longer afforded details of the scene after that moment. As he recalled, a searing flush rose up him body at the thought of this man baring himself before him.

Reginald’s trousers dropped. He lifted the bottom of his shirt and placed his foot on a chair and pointed at a spot on his inner thigh which prompted the gathered men to murmur congratulations of surviving such an injury and maintaining his manhood considering the proximity. John peeked through the spaces between the gathered men and felt his own body go taut at the long muscular lines of Reginald’s legs.

He imagined running his own hands over them, his small fingers no match for the expanse of skin stretching over the muscles of his thigh. He stood on his tiptoes to see over the hunched shoulders of the men in front of him and felt the flush that had covered him before now concentrate in his groin. There, just below the seam of Reginald’s shirt, he could see the tip of his manhood, the soft loose flesh of the scrotum contrasting behind it against the coarse hair of his leg.

This fever that made John’s hands shake with the need to reach out and touch him was not a result of embarrassment or surprise or any passing fancy. It was a bone-deep desire that could no longer slumber.

He remembered that longing, the all-consuming force of it, and felt something inside him crack open. For all the shame he’d felt, hiding first with Hector, and then others through the years, that first burst of desire was pure and shameless. For Willie too, the simple yearning of his flesh for women was no different. And he felt a strange connection to his son at that moment, that they both were at the mercy of their bodies, with their hearts braced for what lie ahead.


End file.
